He shoots; he scores… How star Aussie export Patty Mills set the NBA alight.
By Richard Cooke.

Credit: AFP

High point: Patty Mills, 25, basketballer

This week, Indigenous Australian Patty Mills won his first NBA championship ring with the San Antonio Spurs. A point guard, Mills is already in his fifth season in the NBA, and has starred for Australia in two Olympic Games campaigns.

Richard Cooke The NBA finals series is on a scale different from anything in Australian sport.

Patty Mills Yeah, I think it is. I’ve never been involved in an AFL grand final, let alone an Ashes series, but I can say what it’s like to be involved in the NBA finals. It’s absolutely amazing. As a kid growing up playing basketball, it’s the pinnacle. The crowd and the atmosphere are definitely on another level from anything else. When you’re playing in your home town it’s great and loud and everyone’s on your side. On the flip side of that you have to play some away games as well, and it’s the total opposite – everyone’s against you. There’s a whole lot of pressure to perform. That’s why they say championship teams win games on the road. That’s what makes the NBA so tough.

RC Those crowds are also physically very close to the players; much closer than in sports played on a field.

PM It feels like people are on top of you at times; there are some interactions with players and people in the crowd, especially when you’re playing away. There’s no doubt the fans and the atmosphere are factors in the game. Those momentum plays – dunks, three-pointers or whatever – the home crowd can be critical in those. And you can definitely get the crowd heckling you more than in other sports.

RC The Spurs have a reputation for being a unique team within the NBA. They do a lot with less money than other teams.

PM Even before I was involved with the club, I knew it was an organisation that not only other NBA teams look up to and try to imitate, but all sporting clubs around the world. After being here for three years and seeing how it’s run, I’ve got to witness it firsthand. It has genuine people that care about you and your wellbeing, before they even think of you as a player. Of course you’ve got to perform, and bring it to work, day in and day out. But it feels like a family environment. I’ve got to know my teammates on another level – I don’t think I would have been able to do that on any other team. I’ll always remember San Antonio Spurs as being one of the highlights of my career.

RC What makes them different?

PM Diversity. We have people from all over the world from different cultures. Not only do we bring that to the locker room, we bring it on the court, too – the different styles of play we’ve learnt from all around the world. They come together, and in one team, on one court, it definitely changes things up a lot. And I think we really buy into the system that is run by Coach Pop [Gregg Popovich]. It’s a big factor on our success, not only this year, but also in the many previous years.

RC Speaking of diversity, are people curious about your background?

PM Over the past year I’ve started to get a little bit more recognition of being more than just an Australian basketball player – I’m an Indigenous Australian basketballer. Me being in this situation, I have a chance to promote my culture, and promote my background.

RC One of your opponents in the NBA finals series, LeBron James, is being talked about as possibly the greatest player of all time. How do you adapt to a player of that calibre?

PM You can’t. An individual cannot play one-on-one against him. He’s just such a great player, he’s a great athlete, he reads the game very well. He uses all his strength to his advantage and makes you pay for it. So, the way to adapt is with a lot of teamwork. He has this ability to score and shoot and get to the ring and do everything defensively, but it’s once he gets everyone else involved, and shows their ability to pass the ball – that’s what makes the [Miami] Heat a tough team to beat. It’s got to be done with the whole group.

RC You lost the finals series against the Heat last year. Are you taking some time to enjoy it this time?

PM You have to. You have to appreciate what’s going on. It’s so rare, a chance to make it to the NBA finals, let alone get an opportunity two years in a row. Last year, one of the huge learning experiences for me was to really sit back and take it all in, what it takes to be a part of the finals team. And this year I was ready to go.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
Jun 21, 2014 as "High point".
Subscribe here.

Richard Cooke
is a journalist and writer for television. He is The Saturday Paper's sports editor.

Karen Middleton
The government ignored security agency advice on amendments to the medivac bill, allowing it to accuse Labor of undermining border security.Pezzullo’s Monday evidence suggests the government was alerted to the repatriation issue well before Labor’s amendments were drafted and it did not act.

Jenny Valentish
Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Royce Kurmelovs
While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Katherine Gillespie
Amid the spectacularly divisive response to Kristen Roupenian’s short story about a relationship gone wrong, the author’s conception of “Cat Person” as horror fiction was often overlooked. Here, she talks about reasserting her genre credentials with the release of her debut collection. “The temptation would be to turn the book into 11 stories about dating from the perspective of young women. So I was grateful that editors recognised it was a weird, dark collection of essentially horror stories. They let it be what it was.”

Jennifer Robinson
Despite narrow legal grounds for concealing documents under our freedom of information laws, government agencies routinely refuse to release them. Appeals are long and costly. Final decisions may take years and challenging decisions to refuse access to documents – as in this case – can run to many, many thousands of dollars. The cost is too high for most, and so the information remains hidden and unpublished.

Paul Bongiorno
No longer confident it controls the parliament of Australia, the Morrison government has shut it down for the next six weeks. And no wonder: it is reeling from revelations of cronyism, incompetence and profligate, unaccountable spending. Scott Morrison’s only defence was to accuse Labor of having its head in the “chum bucket”. If he is right, the bucket is his and he will have to do a lot of hard work to expunge the stench before the May election.

Ladislaus Meissner, also known as Joe Meissner, of “Love Boat” notoriety has, after a decent interval, resurfaced. Joe has moved on from his days in the 1980s as secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and former world karate champion when his putt-putt, the Kanzen, hosted riotous onboard parties, where politicians mingled with even shadier figures. Virginia Perger, a sex worker, said she had slept with the adorable Graham Richardson on board the Kanzen only to withdraw her statement, after much thought.

Perhaps once the Paladin contract story could have toppled a minister. This week, it was almost overshadowed by a parade of other scandals – the 2000 Centrelink robocall deaths; the Helloworld travel scandal; the revelation both Michael Keenan and Michaelia Cash refused to give witness statements to the Australian Federal Police over the Australian Workers’ Union raid tipoffs; the apparent leaking of security advice to The Australian, which was then misrepresented.

As the Federal Court prepares to make a ruling on the AWU raids, and it emerges Michaelia Cash refused to give a statement to the federal police over her office’s involvement, The Saturday Paper reviews the minister’s position to date.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this weekoffers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Peter Hanlon
Trainer Darren Weir’s fall from grace over the possession of electronic shock devices has stunned horse-racing enthusiasts both here and overseas. But could it help efforts to clean up the sport?

Karen Middleton
The government ignored security agency advice on amendments to the medivac bill, allowing it to accuse Labor of undermining border security.Pezzullo’s Monday evidence suggests the government was alerted to the repatriation issue well before Labor’s amendments were drafted and it did not act.

Jenny Valentish
Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Royce Kurmelovs
While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Katherine Gillespie
Amid the spectacularly divisive response to Kristen Roupenian’s short story about a relationship gone wrong, the author’s conception of “Cat Person” as horror fiction was often overlooked. Here, she talks about reasserting her genre credentials with the release of her debut collection. “The temptation would be to turn the book into 11 stories about dating from the perspective of young women. So I was grateful that editors recognised it was a weird, dark collection of essentially horror stories. They let it be what it was.”

Jennifer Robinson
Despite narrow legal grounds for concealing documents under our freedom of information laws, government agencies routinely refuse to release them. Appeals are long and costly. Final decisions may take years and challenging decisions to refuse access to documents – as in this case – can run to many, many thousands of dollars. The cost is too high for most, and so the information remains hidden and unpublished.

Paul Bongiorno
No longer confident it controls the parliament of Australia, the Morrison government has shut it down for the next six weeks. And no wonder: it is reeling from revelations of cronyism, incompetence and profligate, unaccountable spending. Scott Morrison’s only defence was to accuse Labor of having its head in the “chum bucket”. If he is right, the bucket is his and he will have to do a lot of hard work to expunge the stench before the May election.

Ladislaus Meissner, also known as Joe Meissner, of “Love Boat” notoriety has, after a decent interval, resurfaced. Joe has moved on from his days in the 1980s as secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and former world karate champion when his putt-putt, the Kanzen, hosted riotous onboard parties, where politicians mingled with even shadier figures. Virginia Perger, a sex worker, said she had slept with the adorable Graham Richardson on board the Kanzen only to withdraw her statement, after much thought.

Perhaps once the Paladin contract story could have toppled a minister. This week, it was almost overshadowed by a parade of other scandals – the 2000 Centrelink robocall deaths; the Helloworld travel scandal; the revelation both Michael Keenan and Michaelia Cash refused to give witness statements to the Australian Federal Police over the Australian Workers’ Union raid tipoffs; the apparent leaking of security advice to The Australian, which was then misrepresented.

As the Federal Court prepares to make a ruling on the AWU raids, and it emerges Michaelia Cash refused to give a statement to the federal police over her office’s involvement, The Saturday Paper reviews the minister’s position to date.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this weekoffers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Peter Hanlon
Trainer Darren Weir’s fall from grace over the possession of electronic shock devices has stunned horse-racing enthusiasts both here and overseas. But could it help efforts to clean up the sport?